Our Life, Love and Pursuit of Happiness… (and home renovations)

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While Garret is worrying about how our old uneven floor is going to cause problems for installing the new floor….I am already starting to think about what we can do next. As I have complained about countless times before, we have no storage space in our house. In fact we have a really weird teensy walk in closet in our room and a linen closet in the hall way and that is it. Storage space is scarce n our parts and we have been trying to think of some creative solutions that also look nice. My mum came across the below two images which I think would be perfect in some combination in our bedroom

1) Our bedroom is pretty small so the shelving on either side wouldn’t be able to be too wide

2) The ceiling in our bedroom is slanted (there is no attic over our bedroom so the ceiling sort of follows the pitch of the roof) Therefore we don’t have a ton of height to work with.

So I think we will end up having to fiddle with a few things to get it to work. G wants to build something himself, but I am trying to convince him that we should start with an Ikea shell and go from there. There are just so many projects that require our attention around the house that the ones where we can cheat and get it done in an afternoon? I’m all for those. Plus I have heard that building Ikea furniture together is a really good marital test so hey why not?!

It seems that my little house blog took a serious turn for wedding rambling for a while there…now that that is over let me enthral you with our upcoming home reno plans:

Since we took such a time out on the house to focus on summer plans, wedding planning and general non house related life stuff, our home to do plans over the next few months are extensive! We are both big socializers and seem to always have weekend plans, so we decided to make more time during the week to at least push things forward a little. We can easily allot a few hours after work to painting and other house fixing related tasks. We are also going to try to not book both weekend days with plans for a while, so we have some more time to try to accomplish things. The past year and a bit in the house has taught us one lesson: everything takes twice as long as you think it will!

We finished our dining room a few months ago (except for the lighting) and we take so much satisfaction out of how nice that room looks. I want that feeling everywhere else in our home. So….this weekend we are planning to finish painting the living room ceiling and the walls where we removed the crown moulding (Garret has been skim coating and sanding this week so we should be good to go) He is DYING to start the brickwork on the one wall, so that might get kicked off as well. Once the living room is done we are going to (and not necessarily in this order):

1. Put the trim up on the other side of the door in the downstairs washroom

2. Backsplash in the kitchen. We have been putting WAY too much thought into it, we just need to pick something and go with it.

3. Fix the hole in the ceiling in the kitchen that was cut to change out the wiring. (it is so small that we keep forgetting it’s there, but it would be nice to have that DONE)

4. Paint the staircase and railing. The top banister requires some serious sanding though, it would appear the previous owner had a beaver who cut his baby teeth on the fop railing.

5. Put a runner down the stairs

6. New light fixture and fix ceiling in entrance hall (maybe this is two separate items?!)

7. Finish painting our room and guest room–we have colours chosen already we just need to get at it

8. Install the new hardwood flooring we bought upstairs (I will be sucking up to my Father in Law tonight to see when he can come help! )

9. Install three new doors upstairs (two bedrooms and the bathroom) The existing doors are AWFUL. The guest bedroom door gets stuck all the time, the gap in the bathroom door would be perfect for a peeping tom, and our bedroom door doesn’t even close!

There are a billion and one other items on our list, but I feel like this is hefty enough to keep us going for the fall/winter. I also need to throw in: organize basement and build closet type fake built ins around our bed, but don’t let me get ahead of myself! One of my girlfriends might be coming to live with us for a few weeks in October so I feel like getting the guest room sorted out might be the top of our priority list.. I will keep you posted on how things go.

We made a little to do list the other day. Aaand have been working hard the past two days to get things done. The satisfaction in crossing things off that list is nearly audible…and I’m using a Sharpie so you know it’s really done! A few of the other tasks are in progress but I’m pumped that by the time we go out tonight they will be all done. It will feel amazing to welcome 2012 into a clean and organized house. Oh lm getting old

We are really looking forward to the satisfaction of being able to say “one down” followed by a happy dance in our one finished room. I haven’t run this past G yet, but I just decided that that room will be our kitchen (merely as it requires the least amount of work) Our one wall is prepped and ready for paint–and depending on how much fun we have at the wedding Sunday, might get tackled on Monday. Last week we swapped out the socket covers from dirty white, to a brushed nickel to match the handles/drawer pulls. So all that will be left would be:
*paint chalkboard wall
*remove the old door hardware that has been painted over in the door way
*fill in the holes this will leave
*clean and repaint the white trim
*do a backsplash
*paint and get countertop for our butcher block
*new light fixture (this is a want more than a need)
*cap the top of the cupboards so that the 8″ headspace is no longer a dust depository

Am laying in bed but instead of sleeping in our weekend to do list is scrolling through my brain. As usual it is overly ambitious but hey…a girl can dream!

*make our engagement video ( this is getting done for sure as my friend is
Coming over with his video camera a bit later)
*Buy a chest freezer from Costco.(this has to happen as we have a large order of meat coming on Monday night)
*finish stripping the doors I started in June (blush)
*Paint wall in kitchen
*hand out block party invitations
*500 other things I will think of once G gets up and makes us coffee!!